U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

The scandals that rocked the federal Department of Veterans Affairs last year rightly had some high-reaching consequences, including toppling secretary Eric K. Shinseki. Whether Shinseki’s successor, Robert McDonald, has been able to effect much of a cultural change within the department that provides, among other things, healthcare for some 6 million veterans is uncertain. But it is troubling that after revelations that veterans may have died while awaiting treatment within the VA system, and VA officials covered up the crisis with falsified “waitlists,” only a relative handful of VA employees have been held accountable. Why? Congressional...

Related "U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs" Articles

PHILADELPHIA — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has notified at least eight employees at the embattled Philadelphia VA benefits office that it plans to fire or suspend them — a penalty that appears to be unprecedented in the nearly two years...

WASHINGTON — Ending years of wait, the government agreed Thursday to provide disability benefits to as many as 2,100 Air Force reservists and active-duty forces exposed to Agent Orange residue on airplanes used in the Vietnam War.The new federal rule,...

Reversing a long-held position, the Department of Veterans Affairs now says Air Force reservists who became ill after being exposed to Agent Orange residue while working on planes after the Vietnam War should be eligible for disability benefits.
The VA...

WASHINGTON — Two Democratic senators are holding up a confirmation vote on President Barack Obama's nominee for Veterans Affairs' top health post, citing the department's delay in extending disability benefits to Air Force reservists possibly exposed to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two senior Veterans Affairs officials in Philadelphia acted improperly when subordinates were charged money to attend a work-related party featuring psychic readings, resulting in personal profits for the spouse of one official,...

HARRISBURG — The remains of a convicted murderer must be removed from Indiantown Gap National Cemetery so it can remain hallowed ground, U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta said Tuesday. Barletta, R-11th District, has introduced legislation in Congress to disinter...

— The U.S. House has approved a bill crafted by Rep. Charlie Dent's spending panel to pay for military construction projects and the Department of Veterans Affairs in the coming year.The $77 billion proposal was the first of the House's 12 annual spending...

WASHINGTON — A House committee voted Thursday to issue a subpoena of the Department of Veterans Affairs for personnel and complaint files at its Philadelphia office, part of an expanding probe into mishandling of veterans' disability and pensions claims....

— Often as Congress lurched toward another self-imposed fiscal crisis, U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent urged his colleagues to stop bickering and meet their constitutional obligation of funding the government.
On Wednesday the U.S. House attempted to do just...

Dent's spending bill poised for House vote
U.S. congressman Charlie Dent has made it through one big milestone in his tenure as one of the House Appropriations Committee's so-called cardinals: the spending bill he shepherded through subcommittee is...

WASHINGTON — The Veterans Affairs official who oversees benefits is rejecting notions that mismanagement at the Philadelphia office points to a broader, department-wide problem in handling veterans' claims and says an internal review will help determine...

I was anticipating that a nearly yearlong audit of the veterans benefits processing center in Philadelphia, which handles claims from the Lehigh Valley, would reveal a pitiful operation.
Just the anecdotal accounts I've heard from local veterans and...

Imagine how we would meet the service-related health care needs of military veterans if we had a clean slate and were considering the question for the first time. The answer is obvious. Just as we do with veterans' educational benefits, we would use the...

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs doctors need more flexibility to work with their private sector counterparts, U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Lehigh Valley, said Thursday on a visit to an Allentown outpatient clinic.
Dent, recently named chairman of the...

The veterans medical center in Wilkes-Barre provides a clean, safe care environment overall but stands to improve in some areas, including care of stroke victims, according to an audit released this week.
The inspector general for the Department of...

Two parallel probes into mismanagement and other problems at the Philadelphia VA benefits office have expanded because of a continuing stream of allegations from employees, according to a source familiar with the reviews.
The results of an...

I understand we've turned the page to the next controversy — Obama's unconstitutional immigration pander — but I'd like to dwell a little longer on the previous travesty.Obama administration health care consultant Jonathan Gruber was discovered to have...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has dismissed the director of its Pittsburgh-area hospitals following a fatal outbreak of Legionnaires' disease.VA headquarters in Washington announced Thursday the firing of Terry Gerigk Wolf, whom the department...

When World War II veteran Norman Carty died last December in an assisted living home in Bethlehem, the government profited.
It didn't have to pay $8,660 the Department of Veterans Affairs owed him. He had been waiting for the money for six months, and...

At last, America's military veterans seem to have a secretary of Veterans Affairs who gets it.
VA Secretary Robert McDonald, the former chairman, president and CEO of Proctor & Gamble who came to the VA just three and a half months ago, has made...